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04-11-2005, 12:23 AM | #1 |
Traded your soul for pogs.
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Champaign, IL
Posts: 646
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chains, chains, chains
Inspired by the Corporations you love/hate thread, I decided to share.
I am moving in a month from Chapel Hill, NC to Champaign-Urbana, IL. Both cities are home to major universities. Chapel Hill is a really quirky place - a liberal refuge in the bible belt. Lots of unique botiques, locally own restaurants and a great downtown that runs right next to the UNC campus. Focusing more on the food, you can get a great gourmet meal just about anywhere in town - my favorite being Crook's Corner (www.crookscorner.com). Even the restaurants located on Franklin Street that cater to the college crowd (ie cheap eats) are unique and locally owned. Chapel Hill has very few franchise/chain restaurants. There is an Applebee's, your typical pizza places, and fast food restaurants - but not a lot. The town abhors chains... so it's surprising that we even have what we have. Champaign-Urbana, on the other hand, is home to practically every chain restaurant/store I know. Even on the main street through the college town, most of the restaurants are chain restaurants. Absolutely no origniality. While it was funny to see all of these chain restaurants, it also made me a bit sad. It seems that a town now gauges it's success by the presence of all of these chains. Come visit CITY X, we now have a Chili's, Bennigans and a Red Lobster. It just makes me really sad. Local restaurants are something that can truly make a place unique and you will always remember what you had to eat before you can remember anything else about a place you visited.
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I love England, what can I say? |
04-11-2005, 01:07 AM | #2 |
Does it show up here when I type?
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Between the smoky layers of a prosciutto sandwich!
Posts: 355
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There's a place in Brantford, Ontario that makes a back bacon sandwich that you would kill your family for.
The bacon comes from a pig farm down the road, and it is the sweetest, most tender pork you can possibly imagine. Raised the old way, not the same shitty pork you find in supermarkets now that is "white" and flavourless for marketing purposes... Six or seven bucks, and you get two inches thick of the stuff. I've driven to Brantford explicitly for that damn sandwich. And Waterloo, there's a Greek place that does things the old fashioned way, with the best gyros you will ever eat. Two for five bucks. Homemade tzatziki, shit, makes you want to live in the restaurant. I chat soccer with the owner all the time. And I went to Harveys the other day. They've gotten rid of the "Big Harv", which was a slab of decent beef on an egg bun, because it took more than the maximum 2 moments or whatever they deemed was most economical for burger cooking. Everything you buy is weighed, proportioned, prepackaged, soaked in grease, and prepared by a dude who hates his job. A chain restaurant is (with few exceptions) nothing more than the precedent for automated dinner vending machines. I want to eat at a place where, if I slap the owner with a massive tip and tell him I just ate the best Goddamn sandwich of my whole life, it'll make his day, and he'll remember me next time. I'm glad the chains are so popular, I really am. It keeps the ruffage out of the really good joints. |
04-11-2005, 11:00 AM | #3 |
dar512 is now Pete Zicato
Join Date: May 2003
Location: Chicago suburb
Posts: 4,968
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Champaign's not that bad. You just need to get off of Mattis. Every town has its chain restaurant row. There's lots to do in Champaign. Lots of neat places right around the college for the young and single. If you have kids, check out the castle park - not the official name, but what everyone calls it.
What takes you to Champaign?
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"Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." -- Friedrich Schiller |
04-11-2005, 07:38 PM | #4 | |
Traded your soul for pogs.
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Champaign, IL
Posts: 646
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Quote:
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I love England, what can I say? |
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04-11-2005, 08:03 PM | #5 |
Homicidal Terrahawk
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Wall drug
Posts: 75
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There's a place in Warrensburg, MO that has the BEST barbeque pulled pork sandwich I've ever had, served with sweet potato fries. It's called Perry Foster's BBQ, and I've been known to drive three hours one-way just to eat there.
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No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting. -Mary Wortley Montagu |
04-11-2005, 09:50 PM | #6 | ||
dar512 is now Pete Zicato
Join Date: May 2003
Location: Chicago suburb
Posts: 4,968
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Quote:
Quote:
Ok. Maybe not that similar.
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"Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." -- Friedrich Schiller |
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04-11-2005, 10:26 PM | #7 |
Traded your soul for pogs.
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Champaign, IL
Posts: 646
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As of right now, I'm not even going to bother with the bar exam - it's an expensive investment for such a short time in a state - I'd rather have the money to spend at IKEA .
I'm thinking about getting my LLM in Intellectual Property Law from John Marshall in Chicago, so I could be looking at a daily 2 hour commute. I'll want to leave Champaign... I was never a big fan of U of I - it has an ugly campus and I hate that nasty orange. :p
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I love England, what can I say? |
04-12-2005, 06:48 AM | #8 |
Lecturer
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Ohio
Posts: 927
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damn it, after reading the title of this thread, I have Aretha Franklin's song stuck in my head..."chain chain chaaaaain, chain of fooools..."
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04-12-2005, 07:01 AM | #9 | |
Esnohplad Semaj Ton
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: A little south of sanity
Posts: 2,259
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04-25-2005, 04:12 PM | #10 | |
Yes No Maybe So
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: MO
Posts: 1
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It's located at the corner of DD hwy and hwy 13 (hwy 13 is the main street in Warrensburg), on the south side of town. It is definitely worth a long drive to pig out on his crap!!!! BTW, I'm luckily enough to be a native |
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04-25-2005, 04:49 PM | #11 | |
Esnohplad Semaj Ton
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: A little south of sanity
Posts: 2,259
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There is one good bbq joint I've found in NY State and it's in Syracuse -- several hours from where I live. http://www.dinosaurbarbque.com/ |
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04-27-2005, 12:26 PM | #12 |
halve your cake and eat it too.
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Georgia.. by way of Lawrence Kansas
Posts: 1,359
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I lived in champaign from when I should have gone to kindergarten until 3rd grade, nice place from what I recall... and yeah Chapel Hill is a cool place, kinda like Lawrence.. sorry braindead today.. whiskey and chess can be a dangerous combination..
and as far as chain resturaunts go? the only two I frequent are Jimmy Jons and Subway.
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no my child.. this is not my desire..I'm digging for fire. |
04-27-2005, 12:27 PM | #13 |
halve your cake and eat it too.
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Georgia.. by way of Lawrence Kansas
Posts: 1,359
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and how do mutt? nice to see yet another mid-westerner on this thing
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no my child.. this is not my desire..I'm digging for fire. |
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